Brodeshead Revisited

I need to just say something. Contrary to how my last post sounded, I did not spend that evening in my room, on one knee, guzzling Smirnoff Ice. What I did do was go to a store with many people who were not imaginary and purchase an economy-sized bottle of the stuff. Also, my self-Icing was not nearly as notable as the "fight" we watched between two French teenage boys. It consisted of both garçons whining and pleading that the other stop escalating things. In a way, they were fighting about fighting. Just your average pseudo-intellectual French activity. Voilà.

Sunday night was trivia night at this British pub that seems to speak neither English nor French; it is called "Le Frog and Rosbif" and despite the fucking weird name it is a pretty cool joint. The place used to be a prison for women back in the days of yore, and now it's a prison for alcoholics. I was on a team of mostly Northern Irish people, but there were a couple Londoners, and also there was a Danish man whose name may have been Yogurt. At the behest of one particularly immature N. Irishman, our team called itself "Shit Sandwich" and we tried like hell to understand the quizmaster (did I just say that?) as he yelled out thirty questions in French. The questions were equal parts inane and arcane: "How heavy is the heaviest radish in the world?" "What happened to the Brazilian woman last week who ordered a hit on her husband's mistress but then the hitman fell in love with her?" "How many cockroaches are there in the hockey stadium?" (I don't think we heard that last one correctly.) All told, we ended up getting 15/30 right. That's right: Shit Sandwich broke even.

This weekend I may travel down to Biarritz just for kicksies. But I also might read Walden and The Portrait of Dorian Gray, in French, as I'm supposed to. It's really a toss-up...I'm so torn.

Today I think I did the impossible (for my demographic): a crossover. I mean I did work on the court today. Here is an amateur reenactment of another feat I pulled off, this one against a much taller mec I was defending: I'm the black guy.

To all of our readers living in a 50 km radius (I have no idea how far that actually is): we're having a party on Saturday night in Pessac. If you don't know, Pessac is a sad excuse for a town just outside Bordeaux. It comes from the Latin phrase for "I'm pissed I actually live here." Seriously though, all who are of legal drinking age in at least one country in the world are more than welcome. Also seriously though, there might actually be people reading this who aren't in Paris or Boston right now. We've got statistics on our audience. (Looking at you, Argentina. WHO ARE YOU? REVEAL THYSELF!)

The party is going to make both travel and study complicated during the weekend. Well, as the French say, "To read is to mock the blind; to drink is to thank the gods." -- Voltaire

(P.S. For those who are curious about the actual answers to those quiz questions, tough luck. It was too noisy to hear most of them. We did manage to get that one about the cockroaches right, though. Turns out there are three of them. Shit Sandwich rides again!)